Mourneth for the Southron Lord
by en extase
Summary: HP-Silmarillion crossover. In secret, a Vala breathes life into dark harmonies, whispering a mysterious Fourth Theme of the Great Music. An Age before the rings of power were ever forged, Harry Potter is raised on the isle of Westernesse to become a knight of Ar-Pharazon, the last king of Numenor.


May I present my long-in-the-making crossover between Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. I wanted to offer something relatively new, mainly to those who were exposed to Tolkien's work through_The Lord of the Rings _trilogy, in the form of either the books or the Peter Jackson films. I wanted to write something that incorporates more of Tolkien's fascinating legendarium beyond the scope of the Third Age than the majority of existing crossovers. It's a very beautiful world and I had to write something that takes place closer to that time.

The first arc of the story will be told in the timeframe of _The Silmarillion_, which encompasses the creation myth of Arda and continues to the fall of Númenor, which presages the founding of Arnor and Gondor and the events of the trilogy we all know and love. A time when the legends were still alive, the Valar had not yet forsaken Middle-Earth, and the world had not begun to fade and decay...

* * *

_There was Ilúvatar, the All-father, and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones,  
that were the offspring of his thought, __and they were with him before aught else was made..._

-The Ainulindalë

* * *

**Mourneth for the Southron Lord**

* * *

The reflection pool was a maelstrom of motion. Moonbeams entwined with the rain and together they fell through the occulus of the black cathedral, sending shockwaves of ripples through the once serene waters. The chambers were shadowed in the melancholy of the solitary figure seated at the side of the long, narrow marble basin. Garbed in flowing robes that iridescent white and grey as it caught the starlight, he drifted a fair hand through the water. With the other, he cradled a silver lyre adorned in carvings of vines against him, resting his chin upon it.

He stared at the reflection, idly watching its undulation with each raindrop that warped it before it could ever fully form. The image of his eyes were unmuted and fiery even on the surface of the water, burning with the light of the Flame Imperishable.

The brooding Ainu strummed the strings of the silver lyre, sending another surge through the water. Bells of pearl and melanite chimed as music laden with power swept through the air, traveling far before dissolving into silence.

Once there had been nothingness, only corridors within the infinite void where the newborn Ainur had feared to tread. They had huddled together, lost, but their father had called them all together, and as they listened awestruck to him, declared the first theme to them.

In doing so, Eru Ilúvatar had revealed to the heirs of his thought the vast power they possessed. Within the all-encompassing dark of non-being, they could shape from the nothingness what they desired.

Now the dwellings of the Ainur were great and worthy of wonder. They formed a core of creation, claiming the dark matter of the void and molding it with their voices, with the Timeless Halls at the center. There was Manwë who guarded the pillars of the halls, and Varda who watched over it from above. And from there outwards, each of the high Ainur forged a dominion for their own, and surrounded themselves with the lesser Ainur that associated themselves with the fourteen lords and queens. Fountains, pathways and rivers that flowed through the air overlooked by grand promontories, glittering waterfalls that terminated into the nothingness of the Eldest Dark, gardens that brimmed with balsam and nightshade. A mere seed of thought, once planted, could beget things of great beauty.

Amongst all of the angelic beings, his craftsmanship and the scope of his ambition were nigh unsurpassed. But his chambers were joyless and far to the fringe of their world, and he seldom received visitors. This was not to say that he was an outcast, for despite his reclusive ways his kin would seek audience with him from time to time. Iluvatar was the all-beloved, the father, but _he_ was the eldest, and he was well-loved by his younger brothers and sisters.

He saw the glimmer of light not his own in the water and observed it approach steadily. He did not move his head, betraying no sign that he had seen it.

"Lost in thought, Melkor?"

There were ten that appeared before him on the other side of the reflection pool. Dignified in bearing, they regarded him quietly. There were no doors between kindred. They moved to and fro as they willed, denying no one passage to their inner sanctums. Melkor was no different.

The one that had spoken was an Ainu named Aulë. He had yearned for their Father to accelerate his plans the most, his impatience second only to Melkor. In the privacy of his thoughts, Melkor deemed his younger brother closest in spirit to him.

"Perhaps," he admitted.

The others were lesser Ainu drawn from the retinues of the other thirteen elder children, and though they shared a lesser part of the gifts bequeathed to the Melkor, they were still Ainur and wielded great power.

"These are joyous times," a pale, dark-haired Ainu named Mairon said from Aulë's side, "We shall soon complete Almaren."

Melkor strummed his lyre again, and his reflection in the water morphed into a tableau of Arda. His eyes drank in the sight hungrily. A faint and ethereal blue mist blanketed the land like a veil, hiding a masterpiece half-completed. The oceans swayed, the waves lapping at shores with gentle caresses as if living embodiment of the nocturne-lullabies of Melian. Stone fell as if carved by a colossus, revealing mountains and cliff-faces. For a moment, a pang of longing and a powerful affection overtook him, and he turned away, unable to bear the vision any longer.

"Joyous..."

Yet somehow the word tasted like ashes.

"I have yet to explain why I called you to me..." he murmured, straightening himself.

The others were similarly affected by the sight of their great creation, and they had drawn closer. Their attention returned to him.

"When I sang, each of you felt... sympathy."

The lust for the Flame Imperishable. The desire to create beings of their own. They were reflected in his younger siblings, though in a lesser way.

He had scoured the furthest reaches of the void, but in vain, and its elusiveness had fed the Discord.

"We think we know what you will ask of us..." Ossë, Ainu in service to Ulmo stated.

"Ilúvatar will not approve..." Mairon fretted, "He will punish us."

Melkor's mouth thinned.

His father had remained silent at first. He never once made to reprimand him, and had appointed Manwe to orchestrate the Ainur without ever summoning Melkor before him. He only revealed his designs in parts, the First theme. The Second.

Until the Third.

"It was Ilúvatar that kindled us into existence," he spoke, a trace of bitterness lacing his words. "Everything we do adds another piece to the puzzle, realizing another aspect of his grand design. He is the ultimate source of our every thought. If we weave our own melody... is it not so because Father willed it?"

They shifted, discomfited by the memory of his shame, when Ilúvatar had revealed his knowledge of Melkor's secretive departure from the greater collective of their choir. He knew that Melkor had created the sea of turbulent sound that had challenged their song. The interweaving of discord and arias of sorrow, persuading others to sing according to his vision and not to their original thought. He had shown before their eyes the fruits of their labor, the full history of Arda unfolding from beginning to end. They had witnessed its shining glory and its dimming. And as one, they were shown that Melkor's efforts to corrupt the Great Music had been foreseen, and instead it had enriched it.

He had dived into the void out of the reach of his kin, fleeing them in his humiliation. Brooding in the quiet stillness where the firmaments ended, a long time passed before he returned contrite and humbled, the very picture of the prodigal son.

Yet he was still the eldest and mightiest among them, and Melkor knew more of their father's mind than any of the others.

"If you believe this to be true," the lovely Melian, servant of Vána and Estë, said shrewdly, "Then why are we gathered here in secret?"

He smiled in answer,

"Have you ever thought," he began, "that the final refrain of the Great Music may yet to be uttered?"

A murmuring stirred among them for this could be nothing but heresy, but they quieted at a gesture from Aulë. His eyes bored into Melkor's. He was far-sighted and nothing could be hidden from him, but he found the dark orbs staring back unreadable.

They had completed the the Ainulindalë. The elucidation of the themes had come over centuries. Their minds had flowered through their meditations as solitary voices and their explorations as a unified choir... nothing remained of Ilúvatar's will to be realized. An expression of consternation crossed his face.

"Brother, you know what we have sung cannot be undone. Our words are not petty things that can be reversed at a whim, but prophecies woven into the very stars by the Secret Fire... they cannot be defied once made, not till their light dies out..."

"What are prophecies but the expressions of our will?" Melkor asked quietly.

His siblings fell silent.

He set the lyre aside and stood, voice rising in his urgency.

"Do you not feel the shackles upon us? We, alone, in all of this endless sea of the void, have the power to create life. Father revealed to us the world that our minstrelsy has birthed... The roaring of the seas. The whisper of the winds and the air. He has shown to us the Firstborn and the Followers..."

Here lay his first deceit. He feigned his intentions even to himself, for deep within him, a part of him wanted the wills of the Children of Ilúvatar, these strange and free peoples so unlike the Ainur, to be bent to him. It troubled him deeply, and he knew he could not dare to divulge it, especially to Aulë.

He turned his back on the golden light of the Timeless Hall, away from the light of youthful Arda reflected in the midst of innumerable stars, and instead thrust his hand to the Outer Dark, the wall of night that stretched from the boundaries of their abode and beyond the furthest of their beacons. None of his kindred showed any sign that they were intimidated, but even in their timelessness, they _remembered._ The first days of fear and incomprehension, when there had seemed to be no refuge from the yawning maw of the void.

"You have seen the extent of the All-Father's vision. You have seen the emptiness that is fated to remain out there!" he spat heatedly. "Is this our final say?"

Melkor could feel the warmth of their unity even as they mulled the grimness of his words. They had sung with him. They had joined him in crafting the dark harmonies he'd feverishly conceived. Like a precocious child he had broken from the chorus, and on some level his sorrow, his... _envy _had resonated with them. They were bound by a web of loyalties: to him, to each other, to their masters, to Father... but to side with him on this was not betrayal.

They looked uncertainly to Aulë, who stared into the reflection pool, hands clasping its side. Now it was he who appeared lost in thought, pondering the Children, yet to be wrought for many solar years still. Melkor could sense the impatience flaring again, the unbearable curiosity to see their legacies given form, and knew he had ensnared his brother.

Aulë tore his gaze away from the water.

"Our voices are with yours," he said solemnly.

Melkor gave a small smile.

"Then farewell, and wait for my word," he answered.

He tilted his head in a gesture of respect, and one by one, they departed.

_It is not over, _he thought, gazing into the dark and imagining what might be created in its stead.

The Ainur, though only a small fraction of their full number, would sing once more.

A Fourth Theme.

_His _theme.


End file.
